Free Days

Mondays and Tuesdays are Free Days at the cool museums. And conveniently, Mondays tend to be my day off. And as luck would have it, so was this Tuesday.

On my agenda for today: snap a photo of the Hans Christian Andersen statue in Lincoln Park for the newsletter. Head downtown to the Museum Campus.

After a night of pouring rain, it was impressively pleasant out today. So I was tempted to spend all day in the zoo. But I can do that any day for free, versus having to pony up cash for the other museums. And since the Zoo is so close, I can do it without setting aside a lot of time. So I took a bunch of lovely pictures of a statue near the carousel which turned out NOT to be the statue in question.

Which is a bummer, since the real HCA statue is not quite as lovely.


I did walk through the primate house. Couldn't resist. Dodging kindergartners who were just making the gibbons hyper. Including one guy who was missing an arm. But that didn't slow him down. Truly amazing how fluidly and quickly they move.

Took the bus(es) down to the Museum Campus. Dropped the original plan of the Field Museum, and opted for the Shedd Aquarium instead. Very cool and PC. Lots on info on invasive species and a cool turtle puppet. Unfortunately free day limits you to the aquarium proper, so I will have to go back and pay real money to see the oceanarium, which involves penguins!

After the aquarium and a quick snack, I headed back to the Adler Planetarium, which I started on another free day. Went into the Atwood Sphere, which dates back to 1913 as the first walk-in planetarium. Pretty cool in the old-fashioned way. Decided to leave when I kept going through exhibits backwards.

Still hacking away at my Chicago to-do list.

Music du jour: Spoon - "That's the Way We Get By"